Unlock: Unlock Campaign Complete: Normal achievement.
The EVA armor's helmet is aesthetically similar to the Semi Powered Infiltration (or SPI) armor's helmet. In fact, in early renders the armor was mistaken for SPI armor. However, the rim from the jaw down to the chin is thinner, including the breathers, and the back of the head has a quarter-sphere shape. The helmet is also much more rounded than the SPI helmet. The helmet may have its characteristic visor for complete field of vision during space operations. It vaguely resembles the Security helmet, as they both share a very large visor. Because of this, it has been dubbed the "Fish Bowl" and the "Sniper Magnet" by some gamers due to the prominent, brightly colored, spherical shape of its visor.

Unlock: Complete The Ark level on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary difficulty.
The shoulder pauldrons are larger than the standard MJOLNIR plates and feature a long attachment to their center, another similarity to the SPI armor, which could be for attaching cables from the docking compartments of ships to prevent the SPARTAN II from drifting away. The pauldrons also cover more surface area than other shoulder pieces.

Unlock: Complete Tsavo Highway on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary difficulty.
The chest plate is a seemingly standard MJOLNIR chest plate set with a small and minor attachment. The attachment consists of a small metal plate connected to a piece of black alloy that has several unknown equipment pieces set into it. It has been speculated that the compartment on the chest plate holds a cable that could be attached to docking ports so that an SPARTAN-II does not drift into space.

The MK.V variant features a larger visor than the MK.VI. It also bears a more striking visual similarity to the SPI helmet than before. This helmet requires the rank of Major to unlock and is available for purchase starting at a modest 30,000 cR for the stock model.

The shoulder pauldrons are large and bulky, several inches thick. The attachments on the sides of the pauldrons found in Halo 3 appear to be built into them, instead of hanging out. It can be purchased for 3,000 cR after unlocking it at Corporal.

The helmet most resembles the Halo: Reach variant, with none of the polygonal patterns seen on the Halo 3 variant. It has a rounded step seen from the side, giving it less of a spherical shape than in previous games.

McFarlane Toys has produced a Spartan Soldier with EVA armor with different armor colors, as part of their 6" Halo 3 action figure line. They have also produced a Spartan EVA soldier that has a color scheme similar to another McFarlane toy line, Spawn.

The EVA helmet bears a resemblance to the Apollo Program's A7L PGA pressure helmet, which was called a "fish bowl" by the astronauts and support staff.

Kelly-087 wears a more angular version on the EVA helmet in the Halo Legends episode The Package. The shape difference is probably because the suit Kelly wore is a Mark IV.

Through the Career section of Halo Waypoint, a player that has achieved Milestone 50 (3900 achievement points on all Halo titles) will receive an EVA helmet for their Xbox LIVE avatar.

The EVA helmet bears a resemblance to the helmet of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, founding member of the French house music duo Daft Punk.

The helmet is infamous among the Xbox LIVE community because of its huge visor, garnering it the names "Extremely Visible Apparatus" and "Please Snipe Here".

It is possible in Halo: Reach to obtain Emile-A239's helmet, which is an EVA helmet with a skull scratched in on the visor when you reach the ranking of Commander. The helmet is listed as EVA[C]. The two variants look identical apart from the carving, which leads one to believe that the [C] stands for 'Carved', 'Carving' or 'Custom'.

The EVA helmet Kelly wears in The Package looks more like the Pilot helmet from Halo: Reach.

The EVA helmet in Halo 3 has more detail on the visor than the EVA helmet in Halo: Reach.

In Halo 4, if the player looks very closely at the front side of the helmet, a very faint skull pattern is visible.